


The Ruler And The Killer

by rightonthelimit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mild Mindfuck, Minor Character Death, Serial killer!Tom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 00:01:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightonthelimit/pseuds/rightonthelimit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death does things to people. Sometimes they change, and sometimes it just brings up the evil that was always residing inside of them, just waiting for a reason to get out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ruler And The Killer

**Author's Note:**

> It's good to be back!

**A/N: Please do not repost, recreate or translate.**

**Summary:** Death does things to people. Sometimes they change, and sometimes it just brings up the evil that was always residing inside of them, just waiting for a reason to get out.

 **Warnings:** Alternative universe, major character death (Harry died), minor character deaths, mild mindfuck

 

**The Ruler and the Killer**

It’s dark.

It’s dark and he’s tired, he’s cold, he’s  _numb._

There’s a steady  _drip drip drip_ coming from the ceiling and he’s caged like the animal he’s become, his eyes red rimmed, his cheeks gaunt, a vacant look on his handsome face. He is there, but not truly. He’s waiting. Waiting for them to take notice that even if they put him behind bars, even if they think they’ve already taken everything from him, he wouldn’t stop taking lives in return.

Oh yes, the things they’ve taken away from him - his reason to remain a proper man the way his mother had raised him, his freedom, part of his dignity.

His husband.

But they would not, and  _could_ not, take away his ability to kill.

Tom’s fingers drum on his thigh almost absentmindedly so. His back is becoming sore from having been hunched over for this long, his bony elbows digging into the tender flesh of his thighs. Solitary confinement - what a joke. It’s only a reward to Tom. Cellmates are only annoying and overzealous, so eager to protect what they assume is theirs, practically begging to get what was truly coming for them.

That’s why Tom killed his previous ones after all. 

* * *

Tom will never forget a vast amount of things.

He will never forget who he is and where he came from – that he grew up in a little town called Little Hangleton, that his full name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, and that fickle things like Sundays in bed have been pleasant to him in a distant past when he hadn’t been alone just yet.

Tom will never forget who Harry James Potter was and what he means to Tom – that Harry never used his middle name, that Harry liked sports and had the most beautiful laugh Tom had ever heard. Tom will never forget the way Harry got on his nerves, the way Harry threw stuff at Tom when he got mad at him, the way he passionately kissed Tom and made love to him for hours. He will never forget their wedding day and discussing a future of optional adoption (a little boy – they were supposed to get a little boy, preferably who was clever like Tom and liked sports like Harry) or finding a surrogate mother and the promise to  travel the world before they would grow old and unable to.

Tom Riddle will never forget that one phone call that changed his life for good. He will never forget the monotone voice that told him his husband had been robbed on his way home from work, and been shot in the chest when he tried to argue the thief taking his wedding ring. Tom will never forget how late it had been around that time – 10:04 sharp. He won’t forget what that phone call did with him.

Tom Marvolo Riddle will never forget the day he became Lord Voldemort.

It was the day he avenged his dead husband.

* * *

It’s brighter in the interrogation room.

There are more lamps, there’s even a tiny window. It’s the first window Voldemort has seen in months, but the curtain is drawn, and he sees nothing but dull walls and an even duller face in front of him. It is startling how little he cares, how cold he has grown and it is intimidating the man interrogating him. Voldemort knows it does.

‘What time is it?’ Voldemort almost boredly drawls. Bill Weasley stares at him with his murky brown eyes. He didn’t hold Voldemort’s interest at all.

Voldemort studies his nails with vague interest. His hands are cuffed, of course. Like it would make any difference.

‘Around 2,’ Bill replies with a wary tone in his voice after briefly glancing down at his watch. ‘Why? Going somewhere, Riddle?’ Voldemort scowls at the sound of that name. It’s too connected with the a past he’s been struggling to ignore and forget, but he wouldn’t tell Bill to stop calling him that. Bill would only use it to taunt him more.

‘ _Past_  2?’ Voldemort inquires. Bill scowls but he doesn’t reply anymore.

Instead he sits down across Voldemort.

‘I think you know why we’re here, Tom, and it’s not to discuss the fickle things like time.’ Fickle. Voldemort couldn’t help but release a cold laugh at the stupidity behind that statement because time is everything. Lives change in mere seconds.

Voldemort could  _take_  a life in mere seconds.

‘Why don’t you confess you killed Barty already? We both know you had the motive. Everyone knows you did it.’

‘Yet you lack the evidence to back up your assumptions,’ Voldemort replies dryly. His eyebrow cocks up in mild amusement. ‘Alas, he deserved to die. I fantasized a lot about it, too.’

Voldemort’s eyes darken considerably as he starts thinking about all the fantasies he used to have, as though merely speaking of Barty makes him angry, vicious somehow. ‘I thought about cutting off his toes and then his fingers, one by one. Giving him shots of adrenaline to make sure he’d stay awake. I thought about ripping his skin off his body and making him choke on his own tongue.’

‘Enough. That’s enough, you sick bastard,’ Bill snaps. Voldemort keeps staring at him, completely unaffected. ‘I have what I need. You’re going to jail for a long time, Voldemort.’

Voldemort snorts. Is this man truly that simple minded? Does he truly believe that Voldemort would just let his emotions get in the way and fuck himself over? Bill gathers his things and shoots Voldemort a nasty look before getting up and walking to the door, freezing when Voldemort starts speaking again. As he should.

‘I said I  _wanted_  to kill him. I said I fantasized about it. Tell me, mister Weasley, is that a confession of me actually having done it?’ There’s a fierce look in Voldemort’s eyes as he glares into Bill’s eyes. There’s no remorse, he feels nothing. People are nothing but pigs waiting to be slaughtered, there is no reason to keep them alive if they all lived their lives like passive pieces of waste.

Bill’s lips press together in a tight line and his hands wrinkle the papers in their grip, his cheeks rapidly flushing. Ah, disappointment. Such a bittersweet thing to behold, yet Bill’s following question is something that even Voldemort was not counting on.

‘Do you think Harry would want this?’ Bill asks in a low hiss. He keeps his distance from Voldemort, his fists shaking by his sides as though Voldemort’s mere presence is an insult to him. Voldemort keeps staring at him impassively, inwardly shaking with rage. How dare he bring up Harry? What does Bill think he knows of them? He may be related to Harry’s best friend, but he would never be able to comprehend their love with that peanutsized brain of his. ‘You’re nothing like the man he married.’

‘No, I suppose you are right,’ Voldemort snaps, his eyes narrowed and his long fingers curling and uncurling behind his back, ‘Harry just can’t feel anything about this. He is dead.’

And what would Harry feel about this, if he could still feel? Voldemort vaguely muses about this, and then inhales a deep breath to try to clear his mind. It does not matter. Voldemort doesn’t work with what-ifs, he is calculative, he only works with facts. Tom Riddle may have once allowed his  mind to be infested with emotions and let his heart get in the way of decisions, but those days are over.

Tom Riddle died the day Harry did.

‘Lord Voldemort? Don’t make me laugh – you’re still Tom Riddle and you know it. You just lost your mind.’

‘Don’t tell me what or who I am! I lost everything when that bastard killed Harry!’ Voldemort bellows suddenly, rising and knocking the chair he’d been seated on with the sheer force of it. Bill’s eyes widen and when Voldemort speaks again, his voice is a low whisper. ‘And if I could, I would go back in time and make Barty suffer even more. Believe me when I say that this is only the beginning.’

Somewhere in Godric’s Hollow, at 2 pm sharp, Barty Crouch Senior’s heartmonitor showed a flatline. Police will later find out it is death by poison, but will never find out how Voldemort did it.

* * *

That night, Voldemort has a dream.

It isn’t his usual dream where he envisions Harry’s death. Harry is still there, but he is alive, he is sad, he is right in front of Voldemort and close enough to touch.

‘Bill was right and you know it too, Tom,’Harry whispers to him. He touches Voldemort’s cheek, brushes his fingers over it, pressing their foreheads together. Voldemort doesn’t reply to it. He doesn’t listen to that name anymore. The person who used to answer to that name is dead. ‘You’re taking it too far. What are you really trying to do, Tom?’

‘And why should I tell you?’ Voldemort finally is able to ask Harry in a thin voice. He gazes up into Harry’s eyes, his heart aching in his chest, amazed by how much he can  _feel_ right now. Has his life before Harry been this empty too? He can’t recall. It’s like he was born to be Harry’s. ‘What good is it to you, Harry, when you are already dead anyway?’

Harry’s eyes gazes into his for a long, long time before Harry settles on top of him. He brushes his lips over Voldemort’s forehead, his lips, until Voldemort’s entire body is shaking with suppressed rage, with suppressed longing.

 _‘Hi, my name is Harry and you’re hot,’_  Harry whispers. Voldemort doesn’t understand as Harry pushes him down softly. They are in their old bedroom suddenly and there are so many memories rushing back to Voldemort that he just basks in the emotions Harry brings upon him for a moment _._

_‘I thought it was obvious you’re my boyfriend.’_

Voldemort’s blood runs cold as Harry kisses his temple, slowly kissing his way down.

_‘I like you. Kind of. Well – if I love you, it’s none of your concern anyway.’_

‘Stop,’ Voldemort hisses. He gripps Harry’s wrist tightly, his breaths shaky. Harry doesn’t look affected by him as he keeps saying things he has said before, things that have been significant to their relationship, things that have made changes to Tom’s life. It  _aches_ to hear those words in Harry’s sweet voice.

 _‘Are you asking me to_ marry _you, Tom Riddle?’_

‘Harry, stop,’ Voldemort snaps persistently, his eyes narrow slits, his teeth bared in a dangerous snarl. Harry just keeps going. He never was good at listening.

 _‘I do. I do – I do, God, just fucking kiss me already.’_  Harry’s lips trail down lower, lower, having reached the corner of Tom’s mouth by now. His hands are shaking, his entire body tense and without telling, Tom just knows what comes next. Tom’s hands grip Harry tightly. They were only married for three months when it happened.

_‘Please. Anything but this – I’ll give you extra cash, I’ll write you a check, just don’t take my wedding ring. My husband is kill me when I tell him -’_

Harry stops talking all of a sudden, his breath hitching in his throat. Tom feels warmth seeping into his own clothing and he chokes on air when Harry looks at him with wide eyes, blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth.

‘Harry?’ Tom asks in a voice so small that it absolutely erased his earlier authorative behavior and everything he said he turned into. ‘Harry -’

Harry brings a hand up to his chest and stares at the blood coating his fingers in shock. He is dying, right on top of Tom, and Tom grips Harry and pushes him down to rest on his back.

‘Harry no, don’t you dare – Harry!’ he screams, his hands frantically pushing the wound shut and his eyes wide. ‘No, no no no – I’m not letting you die on me, not again,  _you can’t do this!_ ’ But Harry does. Tom is right here, he is watching Harry and none of his efforts are working. There is too much blood. Always so much blood surrounds Tom but the only blood Tom never wanted to have on his hands was Harry’s.

‘Tom,’ Harry whispers, ‘Tom I -’

‘No!’ Tom snaps petulantly. He feels so cold, why is he cold? Why is Harry’s blood so  _hot_? ‘You’re not saying goodbye to me again, I’ll fucking kill myse-’

_‘Tom - tell my husband I love him. Please.’_

Voldemort wakes up screaming.

 

* * *

Harry hadn’t taken off the ring.

If Harry  _had_  taken off the ring, he wouldn’t be dead, and Tom wouldn’t be the way he is right now. Tom has always been sadistic, but he has never actually thought about killing someone before. His mother has raised him well and there never had been reason for murder when there always had been other ways.

But then again, making someone suffer this much has never been a necessity to Tom until now.

He shut his eyes and took a wavering breath. He is alone yet he isn’t. He can feel it in everything, in his heart, in his bones, in his very soul that he is being watched. Sometimes he imagines it to be Harry.

Why did Harry have to be so reckless? Why hadn’t he been able to see that Tom would’ve brought him a new one? Had his last words really been that?

Tom licks his lips. Going to the morgue and identifying Harry’s body has been the hardest thing he has ever done. It isn’t the way things should’ve been. They were supposed to die of old age but everything is gone now. Tom’s future, their plans. It had started with revenge, but now killing is just a weak substitute for Harry’s love.

It’s no use. It will never be as intense.

 

* * *

Being alone for a long amount of time won’t affect a person.

Being lonely, however, can crush the soul. Loneliness is like a phantom ache in the chest, it is like a virus that affects everything you’ll touch, like festering wounds all over your body where the pain only doubled because of the maggots feasting upon your agony. Nothing seems of worth when a person is lonely, for they’ll eventually grow cold, distant, and nothing can contain this feeling. It can only spread.

Even people like Tom are forced to admit this.

In a way, the real murderer in this story is Harry Potter. Harry killed their unborn child by dying himself, Harry killed their future. Harry killed everything Tom used to be.

Sometimes, death doesn’t have to be physical to be just as real.

 

* * *

Voldemort has a dream again.

It is a dream of two boys standing at the top of the hill, only their silhouettes visible with the dying sun behind them, warming their backs. Their hands are linked and one is significantly taller than the other.

They aren’t walking, they are just standing there, and as Tom stands there and watches them he can’t shake the feeling of being watched as well. As he turns his head to look  behind himself, he looks straight into the sun.

When he looks down, it is his own hand the smaller boy is holding. Frowning in confusion he lifts his head again. The two boys are still standing still in the distance and when Tom experimentally lifts his hand in an absent wave, so does the tall person across him. Tom frowns as he pieces it together and he isn’t surprised when he looks next to himself to find Harry standing there. He looks back to the figures (reflections, Tom, are you looking into a mirror?) in the distance with confusion written all over his face.

He is looking at himself and Harry. Tom inhales a sharp breath when the Harry in the distance turns to Tom and starts stabbing him – Tom watches himself die and feels panic rising in his own body as his only fear has always been death, the scream bubbling up in his throat never quite leaving his lips. When he turns to look to the Harry he is holding hands with, Harry simply smiles. The Tom in the distance crumpled to the floor and Harry’s reflection returns to its original position. His hand stretches out with no one to hold it anymore.

‘Why?’ Tom asks in a rough whisper because that’s all he can bring up. His heart is still pounding in his chest and Harry just keeps smilling. He looks so young and Tom knows that he is somehow younger himself. They are the teenagers they used to be again, in a distant past when they just started dating.

‘Isn’t this what you want, Tom? To erase everything you used to be? To let it wither and die?’

Tom looks at his dead body in the distance again. The Harry in the distance starts walking toward him and alarm bells go off in his head. Harry is still holding the knife and Tom feels a phantom ache going through his chest yet when he tries to get the Harry next to him to move, to run, Harry grips him tighter and forces him to stay put.

Harry never was the stronger one. Why is he now? Why is Harry stronger than Tom?

‘I’m not certain anymore,’ Tom replies. His eyes are wide, his stomach in knots. He feels like he is going to throw up and his eyes burn. What he has done to so many people, will now happen to him. Harry will kill him.

There are strands of gold in Harry’s hair, the sun playing tricks on them as Harry’s eyes glimmer ominously. Tom thinks of Harry’s words and grips Harry’s hand tighter. He’s warm.

‘Will this mean you’ll be gone too?’

‘Yes,’ Harry simply replies, seeming to be unfazed by his reflection coming closer and closer, knife shining in the dying sunlight. He squeezes Tom’s hand. ‘Yes, it does, Voldemort.’

The name doesn’t sound right, coming from Harry’s lips. It sounds foreign, odd, misplaced like it doesn’t belong there. Unnatural.

Tom shakes his head. No. This is it, then – this is all it takes. Harry and the threat of his life being taken away, it is enough to make him see that maybe, this isn’t the way things ought to be.

‘Will you stay if I start being good?’ Tom asks. He has never been childish, yet the fear of losing Harry once more strikes something in Tom’s chest that used to be bigger, more genuine for as much as that is possible – his heart.

‘Yes,’ Harry says. Harry’s reflection is now right in front of them and both Harry’s blink at Tom expectantly. They almost appear mischievous and when Tom reaches out and touches Harry’s reflection’s cheek with his free hand, both Harry’s close their eyes and inhale a deep breath. They smile.

‘Call me Tom,’ he states. Harry’s reflection opens his eyes to look at him, and then he disappears.

Just like that.

 

* * *

**_Lord Voldemort escapes prison cell – police is failing once more_ **  
_By Rita Skeeter_

_It is on the night of June 25 th that Thomas Marvolo Riddle, who is better known as Lord Voldemort to the public, escapes his prison cell and leaves the police once more with their hands in their hair and no clues to work with._

_Not only did the self-proclaimed Lord keep the police from finding any direct evidence of the people he has allegedly murdered (so far there are seven known victims including Barty Crouch Jr, Barty Crouch Senior, Bill Weasley, an unidentified teenage girl, Hepzibah Smith, Quirinus Quirrel and  Bertha Jorkins), while being questioned, Lord Voldemort somehow also managed to escape the highly secured Azkaban prison located at the outskirts of the country, which no one ever managed to pull off before._

_Thomas Marvolo Riddle was known as an educated, charming man and I have heard from reliable sources that he had never hurt a fly until he found out who murdered his lover. Rumor has it, my dear readers, that this man set out for revenge and murdered everyone who had to do with his lover’s premature death or got in his way while doing so._

_The amount of deaths is climbing, and it appears the angel of death is on its move. Police advices no one to leave the house after dark but if you have no other choice, then at least take someone with you. They are confident that the situation will be solved soon but with all of the blundering they have been doing these past months, I would strongly advice to keep an eye out for this man (see photograph)._

_If you have any information about the whereabouts of this man, please contact your local police station. Your information may save a life._

 

* * *

‘Buenos días, señor,’ a girl with black hair and dark eyes drawls, her attention aimed more at her magazine rather than at the man in front of her. There’s a song playing vaguely in the background, the air hot but not overly so. She’s dressed in a white summer  dress, her nametag reads Pansy. She looks like a girl Voldemort has once killed.

‘Buenos días,’ Tom replies. He places his items on the check-out counter, and then after glancing over his coffee and his vegetables, Tom reaches out and adds a pack of gum. He almost forgot about that.

For a moment, Tom wills the girl to look at the picture at the cover of the American newspaper. He wills her to recognize his attractive face, to gasp and stutter something in Spanish. He wills her to give him a reason to kill her.

But all she does is smack her lips, scan his items and drawl how much he owed her. She did not notice a thing.

Tom scowls and slaps down some money. He doesn’t wait for his change and gathers the plastic bags she put his things in before walking out the door. It jingles in his wake.

Tom’s been traveling around for a couple of days now, and probably won’t stop any time soon. He ended up in Spain, who knew where he’ll be next month. India, maybe. Harry has always liked nice weather and as Tom sits down in the driver’s seat of the car he rented and glances at the empty passenger’s seat, he manages a wry smile.

‘Where to now, Harry?’

Harry is his guidance. He does everything for him. If Harry doesn’t like the way someone will look at Tom, Tom will erase them for both their benefits. He promised Harry to be good, and taking a few lives to protect their own was part of that. Harry is not dead, not truly. His memory lives on and Tom is calmer now. Tom does not need to change into a different person when the person he is is so much easier to be.

‘Anywhere with you is fine,’ Harry replies, or at least Tom imagines him to. He smirks and starts the engine, pausing when he hears a rapping of fists against his window shield.

‘Espere, señor!’

It’s the girl. Has she finally noticed him? Tom glances at Harry and then opens his window, glancing at her through his sunglasses.

‘Sí?’

‘Su dinero,’ she pants, holding out his money. Huh. Had his change been that much? Tom accepts the fifty euro bill and then thinks to himself that she is stupid for returning that to him.

‘Gracias,’ Tom drawls. He mock salutes her and then drives off.

Anywhere, huh.

Anywhere will work just fine.


End file.
